Pearl Haaba Riddim

By Gabriel_Heatwave |
Tuesday 22 January 2008 |
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I first heard this riddim on CD/mp3 promo about four or five years ago; it seemed destined never to reach vinyl until it appeared on 7" late last year. It's kind of weird: about the same time that I finally come to terms with actually playing out mp3 promos rather than waiting (in vain) for the vinyl to drop, up pops this, which was one of the first dancehall mp3s I remember downloading. Incidentally, Dave Stelfox's Guardian article goes into a lot of detail on the shift from vinyl to mp3 distribution and is a very interesting read.

Anyway, all that aside, the minimal bounce of the rhythm track sounded great all those years ago and it still sounds great today. Here's a short mix of three vocals on the riddim courtesy of Vybz Kartel, Wayne Marshall (pictured above) and Bounty Killer:

Various - Pearl Haaba Riddim

Being a few years late though, the tunes are slightly anachronistic, with Wayne Marshall singing enthusiastically about Sean Paul's first Billboard number one (Get Busy). Just as noticeably out of time in 2007/08 is Vybz Kartel's crisp, clipped MCing - in contrast to the generally slipshod, unmelodic stuff he's been churning out recently. Either someone else was writing for him back then or he's really gone off the boil.

Given that the riddim name is Pearl Haaba/Harbour and Vybz Kartel refers to Osaka, you might presume that the sampled, chanted vocals are Japanese. I don't know, but I do remember a riddim from a few years back initially called Latino that was renamed Middle East by the time of its vinyl release. It seems that the general exoticness of the foreign sample is sometimes more important than its specific provenance. Plus this was produced by Black Pearl, so who's to say it's not just an easy pun?